City of Refuge
by romanov16
Summary: In his life, Remy Lebeau has traveled many miles, walked tracks between forgiveness and sin. But at the end of the road, all he wants is a place of refuge...


(*)

"Seek refuge in Mary because she is the city of refuge" ~St Anthony of Padua.

* * *

I

The sprawling streets of New Orleans are a playground, a wonder, a horror, and an underworld, for the children born in sin on her shadowy corners. She was a beautiful, glamorous, but neglectful _mere_; her subtropical, humid air as all-possessing as a womb. Brilliant in her jewelry, the multicolor lights and intricate balconies her blush and masquerade, while the spice of Creole food courted with second-hand smoke and glasses of bourbon.

Seven year old Remy, son and survivor of that mighty city, its future devil and prince, carries his _mere's_ kiss on his forehead like Good Witch of South, invisible luck and favor carrying his feet through his days, guarding his sleep -huddled with others in similar strains- when the need arose. The boy had learn fast the lessons of the Crescent City, of her magical terror-laced dips and bends, walking the line between light and shadow long before he knew what they meant.

Maman N'Awlins watches him run through her streets, and sometimes he thinks he can feel her eyes watching him from the jazz beating heart of the French Quarter. Light, cooing, tempting, but never sheltering. Still, it makes his grin wide, his moves daring, his fingers quick as they dart into unaware pockets.

It's the only life he's ever know, and at ten years old, he thinks it will be all he'll ever knows. And because there is nothing in his life to compare it to, nothing to set the bar against it, Remy loves his_ mere _with the unchallenged competition of a child, Nevermind the fact that she left him more often that not with wore out clothes, sunburnt skin, unwashed hair, and an empty stomach.

* * *

II

He loves her enough that when Jean-Luc Lebeau's captures his small hand in a surprisingly gentle grip, the day Remy pushed his luck and tried to steal from the King of Thieves, he resents that bemused compassion -though he mistakes it as mere interest- that stares down at him.

"Y' a brave t'ing aren't y'? he chuckles as he squats down before the scamp, and becomes the first person to stare into Remy's firey gaze without fear or disgust, which made the boy more agitated than if the man smacked him around. "W'ere yo'r parents _petite?"_

Remy was sensible, and by this point had given up the thought of wiggling his way free by force. So he shrugs, rolled one shoulder and gestures around to the late afternoon street that had been mother and father and refuge to him.

Jean-Luc nods slowly, taking this in with unreadably eyes. "...I see."

Then he wings up a salt and pepper eyebrow, in the way he'll one day teach his son to do, wily with subtle mercy. "Smart boy like y' has talent, _non_? How bou't I teach y' to use it?"

* * *

III

For the longest time after his adoption, Remy missed his _mere_. His playground, his dark wonderland. He not innocent enough not to know her dark corners and skeletons in her dressing room. But still, he knew her arms and her moods. Here in this fine house, he knows nothing -and at first, it's painfully obvious. He can't hold a fork or a spoon or pencil to spell his own name. He hides food away for later out of habit, and has to explain why when he's found out.

For the first few weeks he can't fall asleep in his bed. It's too soft. The plush carpet in the middle of his floor is only slightly more bearably.

And for the longest time, he doesn't understand how he wakes up in bed, when he falls asleep on the floor. So one night he decides to find out for himself. When his Tante Mattie picks up their dinner plates, and excuses him and his new _fere_ to escape the civilizing hands of the grown ups for a few hours before bed, Remy already has it planned out.

He saids goodnight, brushes his teeth and changes into pajamas (and still thinks it weird to have clothes just for sleeping in) just like he's suppose to. The curls up on the rug. But instead of letting himself drift into hazy blackness, he squirms and pinches himself to remain awake, wanting to solve this mystery. It takes only a hour for the threads to sew themselves together.

He's already still, but makes himself more so when the door of rosewood opens and golden light from the hallway halos him in illuminated shadow, not so different than how the lights of the street would embrace him. But somehow, Jean Luc's arms are warmer than that those shadows when he lifts him up. Gentler than the phantom arms his _mere_ embraced him with in his imaginings. This is real, really real, as bed covers were pulled back and settles his form within.

Rough fingers run through his hair briefly, before the sound of footsteps depart and shut the door behind.

Remy didn't have trouble sleeping in his bed after that.

* * *

IV

Remy is no stranger to blood. H's seen it spilled on his mere's fine clothes and dirty streets, he's seen it spill my men who've given up, with a bullets' kiss.

In his life, Remy Lebeau has traveled many miles, walked tracks between cities most folks have forgotten, simply because such journeys aren't required of those left behind. That part doesn't bother him, never did, cause that means their fewer folks in his wake that can testify to his present, once the Cajun has gone; silent as the thief he was raised to be. He's not wholly invisible in this travels, can't be really, at the young age of twenty, and to his annoyance, unless someone gazed long enough into his face, for some he passes for younger.

Still, he's too well breed in survival_ not_ to swallow back boyish irritation at that fact, and use it to obtain refuge when his path to judgment or redemption becomes to long, and he has to rest before he falls. He never stays for long though, and never takes more from his hosts than a bed, some food and, if said host turns out to be a_ belle fame_, a dip in more pleasant, less damming sin.

Then he's on the road again, condemned like Ahasuerus to walk until his feet bleed, and then to _keep walking_. Torn from the abode of his fathers and suffering the penalty for murder, and having stained his hands with the blood again and again, paying the price of sin. To many to count, those he still names their names regardless:

_Genevieve._

_Julien. _

_And now de Morlocks...as if God didn't 'ave enough reasons t' hate moi..._

It's quite a list, one he won't defile by saying out loud, staining the sound as well as his soul, even as his footsteps finally pause in their running, his cowardly fleeing from the hell he's created in the sewers below New York for a madman.

It might be the lost of blood talkin' ('_nd_ the bullet holes, _'nd_ those pesky claw marks in his gut left by Sabertooth) but after Gambit releases the one little soul he's manage to save from his mess to the police (who to their credit, only blink in blunt astonishment at Sarah's pink skin and growing bones, before picking her up and calling for an ambulance) he fumbles through dark streets, finally collapsing against the ally wall and breathing hard to collect his wits and calm the blinding rush of adrenaline, he glances to the black abyss of the sky, expecting to see the full condemnation of sin written there in the twelve stars above.

* * *

V

New York is the second city he calls mother -step mother that is, to his auburn hair stepchild. She's all dark corners to him, no light or comfort. He comes here as his city of refuge, and endures the cold with the yielding nature of a penance. Accepting it as his punishment.

When he's returns to the abode his now dwells in, sore and bleeding, both body and soul, and probably smelling like hell its self, first thing he does is held to the med bay, and begins the long process of making sure he doesn't bleed to death. He ain't ready for hell.

Then he heads upstairs, slowly, careful not to joust his stitches.

But his steps don't let back to his room, insisting on attending confession. And the lead him to the X-Men's own Rogue version of the Vierge Marie -his favorite nickname to tease her with, for the way it made the younger girl gape and blush and huff irritably at him, crinkling her pale nose and peering at him with those introspective jade gems she called her eyes.

Her grand frère Wolverine would turn him into gumbo he saw or smelled what he was going to do -male students weren't allowed in the girls dorm after hours. But like most rules, Remy regarded that as more of a..._suggestion._

Her door's unlocked -makes sense, she don't have enemies like he did. And her room is a refection of a mostly clean soul -jewelry and gloves collected on hangers and racks, Rouge being the fashioned princess around here, and taced to a buildborad are a collection of places she still wants to see and visit one day. And the eighteen year old herself is tucked in the white sheets of her bed, finger still holding her spot in _Les Miserables_, while her white and mahogany hair spread across her pillow like Sleeping Beauty's as she snores, red lips soft and waiting.

...Its still so very hard to believe that she might never know his favorites sins.

Just like when he was a boy, he sinks to the carpet, legs finally unable to hold him. He ducks his head, crowned with broken thoughts like thorns. One's he could not repair.

Times passes like an eternity in itself, and to his chere sleeping form he shares everything he would never dare to in the light of day. Cause he knows she'd never look at him again, not in annoyance, bafflement, or that moon soft, shy way she sometimes did, behind the shadows of her hair. The way that made him feel more like Remy, than the runaway murderer with out a home, with city. Without refuge.

When he felt liquid roll down his face, he assumed it was more blood, but when he tasted it, he found it was tears. To make matters worse Rogue had rolled over, facing him, stirring in her sleep.

* * *

VI

"Merde," he hissed, scrambling to stand, failing, and the noise wakes her up fully with a yelp.

"Swamp rat!" she all but squeaked, snatching up her sheets to hide the fact that she was wearing only a dainty blue tanktop to bed, hiding nothing of her loveliness -though to be fair, she only though_ she'd_ be seeing herself in it. "What are ya-!? How are ya-?! Why..."

She stopped suddenly, blinking, staring, then breathe sucking in and eyes widening as she stared at him.

"Remy..." and she was sliding out of the bed, kneeling before him with gobsmacked concern, eyes open in refuges as she bit her lip, licked them, before trying again.

"What happened to ya?"

He kept his head ducked as he rolled a shoulder, and he can all but see her peering eyes thinking, fore she takes the gamble gingerly grasping his sleeves, and tucking him up with her, supporting his weight as Rogue brings him to her bed -though its not in the way he always envisioned he'd end up there.

"Don't move any, okay sugah?" she breathed softly to him. "Ah'll be _rahght back._"

With that she dashed for her bathroom, legs looking like calla-lilies in her tiny shorts. After a moment of water running, she returned with gloves on, and a wash cloth in hand.

* * *

VII

By the time she's done cleaning him up -a thousand questions in her eyes- Remy's damn near asleep, and too exhausted with guilt to try and fight it. Rogue's fingers brush his hair.

"I'll be wantin' answers in the morn' Remy," she told him, with a sort of strange acceptance. She had her own darkside that ruined her nights. Then she softened again. "But just get some sleep if ya like. Don't worry...Ah won't let Logan kill ya."

He thinks he nodded, and knows he caught her hand in his, and brought its back to his mouth, getting that look he loved so much spreading in blushing posies on her innocent cheeks.

"Merci, Marie," he muttered to her, before refuge takes him.

* * *

Finis


End file.
